Greece

Fearful that EU member states and “institutional creditors” would take a complete bath, and suffer political retribution from their local constituents, Germany is once again warning all involved in the never ending Greek debt crisis, that a “bail in” involving creditors must not take place.
A “bail in” involving the Greek population (in the spirit of the Cyprus “bail in” model used years ago), we imagine will be perfectly acceptable for the German deputy finance minister, and the unelected oligarchs ruling over their EU kingdom.

(MPN) While few might consider being a diplomat a life-threatening or even dangerous job, that trend may be quickly reversing — that is, at least for Russian diplomats.

Former Warsaw Pact member Bulgaria and former Yugoslav Republic Slovenia, which both joined NATO in 2004, say that they would feel safer being defended by the Russian military in the event of war than they would by NATO.
Perhaps more worryingly for NATO top brass are Turkey and Greece. Both joined the alliance in 1952 and have a history of being at odds with each other (to put it mildly) say that they too would feel safer being defended by Russia in the event of war.

Could we see Greeks purchasing their next coffee with USD?
As the Greek debt crisis resurfaces for a third time, Donald Trump’s reported pick as EU ambassador, Professor Ted Malloch, has revealed that senior Greek economists have enquired about the possibility of adopting USD’s if the country crashes out of the eurozone single currency.
Malloch said that Athens is so desperate to quite the eurozone, it is prepared to tie itself to the dollar, much like Puerto Rico.

Back in November I wrote a bleak account of the situation in Greece as I witnessed it following a brief visit there.
More recently I have written pointing out how the IMF has itself concluded that the situation in Greece is unsustainable.

The Financial Times is reporting that a confidential IMF report is saying that Greece’s public debt is ‘unsustainable’ and is set to spiral to three times the size of Greece’s annual economic output, and that Greece’s economy cannot be expected to grow out of its debt problem.

The latest round of Cypriot reunification talks have just kicked off, yet most of the locals are far from enthusiastic about it. There’s a lot of worry among average folks that their country is being sold out to Turkey, with people pointing to the generous autonomy being proposed for the internationally unrecognised so-called “Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus” (unsurprisingly only recognised by Ankara) as proof of this.

In remarks which pre-empted the announcement of the Geneva talks aiming to create a lasting peace settlement in Turkish occupied Cyprus, I wrote about the injustice of Turkish occupation of Cyprus, an EU state which Brussels has thrown to the dogs when it comes to preserving her ‘territorial integrity’, let alone her economic well-being.

Direct talks take place today in Geneva between Cypriot President Nikos Anastasiades and Turkish Cypriot leader Mustafa Akıncı in what have been called “the best and last chance” to achieve a settlement of the decades long conflict which has divided the island nation.
The direct talks between Anastasiades and Akıncı are preparatory for a formal conference commencing in Geneva on 12th January 2017, which will bring not only these two leaders together but also the so-called “guarantor powers” – Greece, Turkey and Britain.